The Idea of the Theater in Latin Christian Thought

Drawing on a wide range of documentary evidence dating from the 4th to 14th century, this study looks at the legacy of the Greco-Roman theatre in Christian writings. Placing this source material within an intellectual and historical, rather than a theatrical, tradition, Donnalee Dox reconsiders the role of classical theatre seeing it less as performance and more as a metaphor in medieval thought and writings. Dox convincingly demonstrates that far from there being a single medieval' attitude towards theater, there was in fact much debate about how theater could be understood to function within Christian tradition' - Constant Mews, University of Monash, Australia.